1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a head protecting airbag device. More particularly, the invention relates to a head protecting airbag device in which an airbag expands and develops like a curtain parallel with pillars and door windows arranged in each side wall of a vehicle body from its front end to its rear end between these things and a driver or a passenger when, for example, the vehicle encounters a sideways collision or turns over on its side.
2. Related Art
Among head protecting airbag devices is a device in which a side airbag expands and develops like a curtain. The side airbag is folded and housed, so as to extend in the vehicle longitudinal direction, in a cover mole which is located at the top of each side wall of the compartment so as to extend from its front end to its rear end. In a car which is equipped with this kind of head protecting airbag device, when, for example, the car encounters a sideways collision or occurrence of such an accident is predicted by activation of a collision prediction sensor (hereinafter no reference will be made of this collision prediction mechanism), the side airbag expands so as to cover the front pillar which is located at the front-right or left corner of the vehicle, the front seat window, the center pillar, the rear seat window, and the rear pillar and develops downward like a curtain between these things and a driver or a passenger. Thus, the side airbag restricts a sideways movement of the head of the driver or passenger and thereby protects the head.
This kind of head protecting airbag device is attached to a roof side rail portion of a vehicle body in a folded state. However, since the head protecting airbag device is long even in the folded state, work of attaching it takes time. And hanging-down of those portions, located between hanging points, of the folded airbag lowers the efficiency of attaching work. Furthermore, the airbag might fail to develop in a proper manner at the occurrence of a collision. In view of the above, an airbag device has bee proposed in which a folded airbag is supported by part of an inflator via a support member (JP-A-2003-306119).